It may shock some of our readers, but many Millennials are hitting 40 very soon. They have houses, kids and over 20% of them are caring for their parents or other older family members. They have arrived, and like their counterparts before them, it is time to create an estate plan, and if you already have one, it is probably time to update it.
Planning for children
Of course, some Millennials have children over 18, but most of those children are young. This adds a layer of additional paperwork and planning needed for Millennial estate plans. A guardian and back-up guardians will need to be named as will planning for their care and college. Trusts can be used for this purpose.
Planning for incapacitation and death
For those Millennials who are currently caring for their elderly family members, they know how important end-of-life planning is to those in the new generation. An estate plan should include our wishes if we become incapacitated, like how long to be kept on life support. It is also important to plan for our burial and set aside money for funeral services. Even for married couples, it is important that we put to paper our wishes because we do not want to leave our loved ones agonizing over such decisions.
Cryptocurrencies
Millennials are the generation that first developed and embraced cryptocurrencies, and some of them have earned a great deal of money from their endeavors. However, as many families have learned the hard way, these assets are not easily transferred on death because of their anonymous and decentralized nature. This is why they must be included in an estate plan, and specific instructions on how to access them must be included as well. Sometimes, a third-party authenticator application that is on the owner’s phone is the only way to access a cryptowallet, but if that information is not included, it will be inaccessible.
The takeaway
For Dayton, Ohio, Millennials, now is the time to estate plan. With kids and an ever-growing net worth, it cannot wait any longer.
